Try yogurt and do it religiously. It can't hurt. The reason this works is that the drugs and the HIV seem to keep the bugs in our guts from doing a good job 'cause they kill them, and the yogurt replaces them and it is cheap. Trust me, it really helps with the pain and the gass and the shits.
Love,
Miss Philicia:
I'm 42, but I started falling apart at 35, so frankly I'm still just assuming 95% of everything is HIV related. It makes me feel better.
ps: Pancrecarb still works better, IMO, than anything else for the gas and bloating. Is it not on your ADAP formulary? It is here.
Dachshund:
I will be 55 next month and you can add me to the gut club. I have no excess fat anywhere else so I chalk it up to the meds. Bad knees hip and shoulder pain are on a daily to deal with basis. No insurance, so until I am 65 it is pretty much let nature take it's course. 50 was the start of me asking myself is this pain aids or age or both?
Miss Philicia:
Yes, I should have added I'm in the gut club and have been for a couple of years, at least where it has been much, much more apparent. It's seems to have gotten worse since I went on Truvada, but maybe that is my imagination.
Of course, that's another LTS problem. Is it med specific or just a layered cumulative effect. Anyway, if it's age let's rethink that because I'm too young to chalk it up to that, especially if it started in my late 30's. And of course, due to my chicken lipo legs and arms I look like a malnourished Darfur refugee, which of course greatly helps me in picking up men at the local bath house.
edit: actually it began before the Truvada, so I should look more to general PI's I think.
whizzer:
I'm not sure one can really tell for sure what are side effects of aging versus what is from HIV versus what are side effects of the meds. Perhaps there is a mix of all three, in some cases.
I have had gut pain issues after eating as well. Always in the same spot, the upper right quadrant of the abdomen, just below the rib cage. It has gotten worse over the last year. However, it has been present to some extent since I turned 45 many years ago, and long before I became positive. The changes I have experienced with my poop are directly related to starting meds, but I can't say that the pain is.
As for achy joints, that started before my infection as well. It is a lot worse now that I have been on meds for a couple of years, but, then, I'm a couple of years older as well.
Oh, when I ask the doctor about these things, he says "who knows?" I suppose the answers still lie somewhere in the future.